AIBU to think this man needs serious help

[Fusedog]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2591485/Father-builds-guillotine-chops-hand-bid-end-years-agony

This is the most shocking this I have heard

I not weather he need physiological help or medical or both but the cutting off of his hand has not led to the pain being relived so it looks like the doctors were correct.

I mean how close tp the edge would you be to do such a thing and then burn the had

What of he cuts off his whole arm and still has the pain I think he may need to be sectioned [confused ]

I just can't frigging believe it really I just can't

Sounds like the medical profession were not taking his pain management requirements seriously and he couldn't cope anymore.

That is a pretty drastic thing to do but he must have been living with unmanageable pain. That kind of chronic pain can drive people to suicide, so in comparison the loss of a limb is preferable.
TBH I'm flabbergasted that he was able to actually carry it out himself; it might sound weird but I admire his grit and determination for being able to do it. It might seem shocking to us that he did this but it's not indicative of mental health problems as such as he did have a 'valid' reason for doing it.

The who's thing is just very sad and he must of been very desperate

However his home job did not stop the pain I think he needs to be stoped before he hurts himself or gives himself a infection from the blades or bleeds to death

Poor guy

I think you misunderstood. The pain was/is his arm the entire time. It is not psychological.

He only amputed his hand because still having a healthy hand attached was what was preventing doctors from amputing the limb surgically.

Very drastic yes, but 16 years of agony can't be fun.

A dear friend of mine committed suicide after the hospital refused to amputate his leg :(

The thing is, it clearly states in the article that the original accident caused damage to his spinal column and nerve roots, he may be FEELING the pain in his arm but his arm was in fact healthy (until he tried to hack it off with a knife, and now clearly does have nerve damage in the limb.)

It may be true that pain management has been ineffective or inappropriate, and I don't doubt that communication could have been better if this chap has failed to understand that amputation won't resolve the problem.

What actually frustrates me most about this case is that he just expects doctors to fix him and take away all his pain. It's an unfortunate fact but if you suffer an horrendous accident and your body is broken by that, sometimes there just is NOTHING that the medical profession can do to repair the damage. I feel massively for him and his family as living with chronic pain is awful but he has not helped himself one little bit.

Although his DLA payments may well increase now!

He doesn't seem particularly irrational to me. Hopefully he gets the treatment he wants now.

SaucyJackyes however he still has the pain which no doubt is what the doctors were telling him that cutting it off was unlikely to stop the pain

So he cuts off his hand to stop the pain the pain is still there so now you have no hand but still have pain you lost lots of blood ECt and burnt the hand you are back mailing the hospital in to cutting off your arm but the result could be the same pain but no arm
Then what

if you read it..

the pain is in his arm.. but the doctors would not do anything as long as he had a healthy hand.. hence why he cut his hand off.

hes got to be so desperate to do such a thing. i hope things improve.

There is a condition in which the pain continues because the nerve cannot switch off. Removing the limb/or whatever part is in pain does nothing. I'm damn sure this would have been explained to him.

His brain interprets the nerve signals it receives as pain in his arm. HIS ARM IS NOT CAUSING THE PAIN; it is a nerve malfunction in his spinal cord which is sending the wrong message to his brain- the article states the accident damaged his neck. Removing healthy tissue (muscle, bone, tendon etc etc) in his arm will not resolve the problem.

A piece of plastic became embedded in his arm, damaging nerves and condemning him to a lifetime of pain.

Neuropathic pain would mean that he could chop his entire body off, he would still feel the pain, iyswim.

It is real damage that causes 'phantom pains', sometimes totally unrelated to the original injury. The spinal block he wants implanted may also be useless to him.

I titrated a few tricyclic antidepressant for my neuropathy, many years ago. But the dose that took the pain away also took me away, so I stopped and put up with the pain, still do.

Sadly for him things will not improve, or at least not go away, he cannot necessarily be cured, though he may yet find a medication combination that will suit him.

My bad, missed that bit of the article. Sorry.

Although the point still stands, the nerves are sending the wrong messages to the brain so removal even of damaged nerve tissue is unlikely to make any difference, especially after all this time.

It says he wants a spinal stimulator implanted into his back to help with the pain. I wonder why they havent done this already if it would help

SaucyJack - the nerve endings that originally received the pain impulse may be the cause of the pain. They continue to misfire, indicating pain that does not exist. So the site of the damage may be fully repaired or even amputated and the pain would continue.

It can be really hard to find the right treatment. It took me about 8 years to give up on medications that, for me, were worse than the pain itself. I still keep a supply of old fashioned benzo's for when mine becomes insufferable. A dollop of that and a sleeper and I go out like a light. But it doesn't stop the pain.

Pain management is incredibly poor on the NHS. Massively underfunded and under researched. Attitudes remain old fashioned and dismissive.

It's something we should be ashamed of, but it's easier and cheaper to blame the patients and abandon them.

I think the NHS has some amazing strengths about it, but pain management is definitely not one.

Didn't Ranulph Fiennes cut his fingers off as doctors wouldn't and he was in so much pain. I don't recall him getting slated.

No Ranulph Fiennes cut off the blackened tips of his fingers after they got badly frostbitten. He did it because he was bored with the condition in both feet and hands. He also tells the story of when the skin graft on his foot floated to the surface of the bath - he fished it out and carried on with his bath.

The surgery for his fingers would have cost a lot and been done at a time inconvenient for him, so he did it himself. I think he had excised another finger tip some time before, so knew what it would be like.

Basically the man is a (self confessed) idiot in some things. I suppose that's why he does what he does, with or without the threat of a massive heart attack.

Sorry, my opening sentence in that last post is really rude!

I should have said that Fiennes wasn't in pain when he cut his frostbitten fingertips off, just bored with the sight of the shrivelled lumps.

But I seem to have typed something that could be read as all sneery, instead - sorry!

I guess we are lucky, the NHS have been really helpful with dh's pain management. Doesn't stop the pain, but they haven't stopped trying despite the fact that it's been four years.

I suffer from chronic pain due to nerve damage. My limbs are badly effected, worst is my legs.
A couple if years ago I broke one of my legs very badly and it needed multiple plates and many many pins to put back together. The pre existing problems caused many complications and at one point amputation was becoming a real option. There are still times that I wish it had ended up being necessary, my pain is never ending. I am on OxyContin, oxycodone and pregabalin just to be able to function at all. That doesn't get rid of the pain, just make it more manageable. Problem is that I know with my rational head that amputation wouldn't be any better. From talking with people I know who have had amputations I have learnt that much of my pain is very like phantom limb pain (I have no sensation other them pain below each knee). Thing is though is that pain can just wipe out your rational brain. I still wish sometimes (more often then I let on in RL) that my legs where gone.
My condition is progressive and I am steadily losing my hands to nothing but pain. I can really understand where thus man is coming from. Pain can make you lose all rationality and fighting for good pain management is soul destroying and takes energy you just don't have.
Chronic pain management is so much better then it was when I started down this road almost 15 years ago, understanding of how pain works is do much better but so much is still unknown. Lots of doctors don't understand chronic pain and bad attitudes coupled with ignorance us everywhere.
The article is a little misleading. Part of the problem is that thus poor man needs educating about chronic pain and the ways nerve damage and the brain work but it seems the main thing this man wants is a procedure and device that is very expensive both to have implanted and to maintain and also has very limited applications and quite a low success rate. It was looked into for me but the over all benefit it could potentially offer just didn't warrant the cost and risks if having it implanted.
I would put money on this man having looked up things on the internet and decided that this device would cure his pain. He then has refused to accept that it doesn't hold the answer he wants (there is no cure for chronic pain, you just gave to learn to live with it somehow) and has become fixated.
It is very sad and yes he needs help and education about his own condition. I feel fir him, I know that pain and he will truly have been in prolonged, intense and poorly managed pain to have gone through with this.

You are right, RoadKill.

If he has done the googly thing he will be almost impossible to convince otherwise. The desperation to get rid of the pain is impossible to explain.

As you say, he needs to learn to live with it. The first step is to accept that drugs and other interventions will not stop it.